In July, I’ll be taking a trip to San Francisco for a week. I don’t know a soul there, but I’ve made up my mind to go. My question for residents of the Bay Area is what are some really cool, interesting things to do while I’m there? I don’t mean the usual stuff like Fisherman’s Wharf, or Haight-Ashbury (although I probably will make the rounds to the tourist-y stuff), I want the “inside dope” on the truly off-beat things that SF is supposed to be so famous for. Any suggestions?
You expect a San Franciscan to tip you off to a cool place to visit in their city which doesn’t have a lot of tourists: not likely.
You could look at some San Francisco tourism websites, of which there are more than a dozen. You could read the local newspapers on the web.
My advice is to bring a jacket.
I’d recommend that you visit Muir Woods in Marin. It’s a old growth redwood forest north of San Francisco. While it is a popular attraction, it isn’t a tourism mecca like Pier 39.
Golden Gate Park and the Sony Metreon are also pretty cool. If you have the time, you might also want to take the 2-3 hour drive down to Monterey, Carmel, and Big Sur.
I visited San Francisco a few months ago. Fisherman’s Wharf is basically for tourists; some nice restaurants, but mostly cheap souvenirs.
I liked the Exporatorium (one of the first hand-on science museum) and the Cable Car museum. Metreon was OK, but unless you’re overly impressed by IMAX (I wasn’t), it’s basically an upscale shopping center and movie theater. I also went to North Beach and hung out at the City Lights Bookstore.
If you can take the trip to Alcatraz, by all means do so. It’s very impressive.
Before or after you visit Muir Woods, drive to the top of Mount Tamalpais. This is very popular due to the incredible views!
Visit the Marin Headlands of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Drive to Rodeo Beach. The road that gets you there takes you up the north side of the Golden Gate, and you get to see a great view of San Francisco which has been used many times in commercials and tv shows. From Rodeo Beach you can hike up into the hills and see more great views and abundant plant life.
Anyone nerdy enough to be at the SDMB would love the Exploratorium. Plan on spending about six hours.
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Buy some fresh sourdough French bread. The climate in San Francisco is ideal for making the best sourdough bread in the world.
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For a religious experience, go to Ghirardelli Square and swoon to the delicious aroma of Chocolate! (Of course I capitalize it. Don’t you? ;))
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I definitely recommend the Exploratorium. I spent about six hours there and that was not enough. Of course, they were closing the place and I didn’t want to start trouble…
–Baloo
Also, don’t forget to come down to San Jose, There are some really neat places to visit down here. The Winchester House is a must see. There are some really nice Japanese gardens out here too.
I could help you out a little more if you were coming to the San Jose area. There are tons of awesome little restaurants around here that I have found from living here for 19 years.
If you like Old Masters, they’re in the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, on the top-left edge of the city.
They have the Van Gogh’s and Rembrants and Picassos and …
Right near there is the Cliff House. A great place to eat lunch or have drinks, watching seals on the rocks, a favorite for turists and locals. I like walking through the rubble of the abandoned Sutro Baths there; it’s like Roman bath relics, but you can take home chunks for paperweights.
In the same place is a museum of mechanical machines, like old fortune-telling machines and gay-90’s flip-card peep-shows.
well, I recommend the Cowell redwoods, up in the Santa Cruz mountains, as better redwoods, and a nice little nature walk. The SC Beach Boardwalk is nice, if you don’t usually do a lot of beaches. The Tech museum in San jose is cool, especially if you are into computers.
Oh, and guys, is there a Bay area SDMB group?
I’ll second Anna’s suggestion on the Legion of Honor; great museum and great location – walk around the grounds a bit, and if you feel like it you can get down to the beach on some rather nice and quiet trails there.
See the Cliff House, too. Mostly for the Musee de Mechanique (once you see and hear ‘Laughing Sal’ you may not be the same again). Make sure to go outside and pay the dollar to enter the Camera Obscura ( a method of projection discovered hundreds of years ago using a small slit and a dark room). It probably won’t be around much longer, at least not in the excellent spot it’s in now.
A few more suggestions – viewing the Golden Gate Bridge from either the northern vista point right off the freeway or from down at Fort Point (the typical movie shot). Go up to Grace Cathedral. Go down Lombard street and all the way up to Coit Tower, especially at night. If you visit Golden Gate Park, don’t miss the Shakespeare Gardens (small, secluded-feeling and very beautiful). Hop over to Berkeley just to see it, and definitely head up or down the coast if you have the chance.
If you want to ride the cable cars, don’t start at the Fisherman’s Wharf end- the lines are longest there.
The Cannery shopping center is right there, though, with some odd stuff like a toy museum and several sandwich shops with views. There are often artists painting in the courtyard or around the sides.
There’s a lot of art galleries going west from Ghiridelli square, a fun window-shopping stroll.
There’s a park in Chinatown opposite the Holiday Inn where they have Chinese Chess tables fixed in place for the local long-beards.
The City Lights Book Store has a lot of Beat Poet era stuff.
Pier 39 is a shopping center with lots of restaurants with views, and in season there are free acts at the end, jugglers and such, and a whole lot of sea lions up close on piers they took over.
On weekends much of Golden Gate park is taken over by roller skaters and bikes. Just enough slope to be fun going down without winding you going up. There’s an island in the lake reachable by rentable quiet motor boats.
Yeah, like High Tech Burrito for example. 
Sorry, could not resist. Good burritos, BTW.
And yet another vote for the Exploratorium.
Come over to Berkeley and do the Avenue thing. (Telegraph Ave.)
Peace,
mangeorge
Of Course no trip to the Bay Area is complete without a trip to Napa Valley for some wine tasting. My suggestion, is to try to find a tour that you can go on. They usually get special tastings not available to the general public and you don’t have to drive. I can’t find a link now, but I’ll find a phone # if you want.
Within 3.5 hours from San Francisco is, arguably, the most beautiful place in the world: Yosemite. If you can’t get reservations anywhere, a day trip would still be worth it. If you want to stay, try the Tenaya Lodge. It’s beautiful.
http://www.tenayalodge.com
If you do the San Jose thing (even if you don’t do it), you should go down to Carmel then Big Sur. Big Sur is about 25 miles south of Carmel on Highway 1. You MUST go there. You’ll be smack in the middle of beuatiful redwoods sitting right at the oceanside. It’s like you died and went to heaven. You’ll never want to leave. Then you should eat at Nepenthe’s on highway 1. You can sit outside on a cliff above the crashing waves and watch the sun set over the ocean. Here’s their website: http://www.nepenthebigsur.com Sitting there, you get such a feeling of peace mixed in with excitement and awe that can only be experienced, not explained.
I almost wish I could see these things again for the first time, but every time I stand on Glacier Point in Yosemite or pull of the road on Hwy 1 for a picnic on the beach, it’s like the first time again. Just thinking about it now excites me and makes me long for that which can’t be described, explained or even justly remembered.
Have fun!
-Katy
I love the WPA murals in the base of Coit Tower. Lots of tourists around the Tower, but they’re there for the elevator to the top.
Ignore that and wander around the ground floor; check out Victor Arnautoff’s “City Life,” Bernard Zakheim’s “Library,” Frede Vidar’s “Department Store,” Ray Bertrand’s “Meat Industry,” etc., etc.
I like to start out at City Lights Bookstore on Broadway and Columbus, then stroll up Grant Street, ascending Telegraph Hill, stopping for coffee or beer, slowly making my way to the Tower, thinking Kenneth Rexroth thoughts.
SF forecast today: 88 Inland: 105 deg
ah, oh, if you are a guy the guys there are real friendly to ya.
While in SF, you should see Beach Blanket Babylon.
In the heart of North Beach, it’s a San Francisco Classic that you’ll never forget or regret.
Dinner afterwards in North Beach at the Stinking Rose or Cafe Sport.
One wonderful thing San Francisco boasts that the tourists have yet to discover is The Most Scenic Swing Set in the World.
Yes, I feel as though I’m betraying some sacred thing here.
Just off of Haight Street (the legendary Haight Ashbury of hippy fame - turned skanky druggy street - turned trendy vintage clothing and coffee shop druggy street) just past the trendily vagrant kids in $200 leather jackets begging change there is a park called Buena Vista. Climb the little hill and you will discover a playground featuring The Most Scenic Swing Set in the World. The view is astounding. Depending on conditions you can see all the way to the ocean, the TransAmerica building, the Bay Bridge, and even on cold damp mornings the tulle fog hugging the city is amazing.
When there, should you happen upon a fellow wearing a red hooded pullover under a denim jacket scribbling in a sketchbook, buy him a coffee. Large, one cream, no sugar.
Important SF things to know:
Wear layers you can take off. The mornings can be foggy and freezing in the middle of July, only to be sweltering by noon. A denim jacket and a flannel you can tie around your waist is a good call.
Off the touristy areas bathrooms can be a hassle to find, and restaurants and stores tend to be stingy lest they attract the vagrant kids. Ben and Jerry’s are always good. Mc Donald’s tend to have buzz-locks, simply go to the register and contemplate hash browns before asking to be buzzed in. Don’t even THINK about using anything other than a urinal in a BART station.
Other places I’d recommend include the Ripleys Believe it or Not Museum off Pier 39 --turisty but still cool, and the Museum of Modern Art (don’t bother with the DeYoung).